AMD Rolls 1GHz MPU Today New Athlons and Pentiums arrive ahead of schedule BY ARIK HESSELDAHL Could it be any closer? In a dramatic climax to the gigahertz race, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) late Friday confirmed that today it will begin shipping 1GHz Athlon micro- processors in systems from Com- paq Computer Corp. and Gate- way Inc. The news comes just days after reports indicated that Intel Corp. this month was planning to rush into production a 1GHz Pentium III Coppermine microprocessor, which will ship in systems from three PC OEMs: IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Computer Corp. People familiar with Intel’s plans said the 1GHz Pentium III announcement could come as early as Wednesday. [Continued on page 54]